Blue Jays get to Qualls, take opener of 4-game series

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Box score

Short in the bullpen and on the bench after trading righthander Jarred Cosart and Kike Hernandez hours before they were scheduled to start Thursday night, the Astros pieced the game together well enough to turn a lead over to their most experienced relievers.

Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow purposely held on to his relievers at the non-waiver trade deadline, preferring to unload what he considered as excess starting pitching.

The first night in the latest step of the Astros’ prolonged rebuild ended in defeat, though, as Nolan Reimold hit a pair of solo home runs to lead the Blue Jays to a come-from-behind 6-5 victory before a crowd of 17,423 at Minute Maid Park.

“The Astros obviously feel like they have an overabundance of pitching and they could afford to part ways with one of us obviously,” Cosart said after the six-player deal. “And I just happened to be that guy. They want to bring some more bats in.”

Unfortunately for the Astros, the most consistent reliever in a bullpen with the worst ERA in baseball stumbled for the second time in three nights.

Jon Singleton’s home run was one of the few bright spots for the Astros in a series-opening loss to the Blue Jays. (Karen Warren / Houston Chronicle)

With the score tied at 5 in the ninth, Reimold drilled a shot to left off Astros closer Chad Qualls (1-3) for his second home run of the night.

“I was trying to be aggressive,” Qualls said. “Earlier in the game, (Reimold) hit a slider for a homer and then a slider to the fence, so I just wanted to be really aggressive with the fastball to get ahead. He ambushed it and hit it over the fence.

“I guess in hindsight, you probably need to be more cautious with the first pitch so that can’t happen, but I didn’t think he was going to swing at the fastball since he’d been sitting on the slider all day.”

Qualls had suffered only one loss this season until Tuesday, but on Thursday he suffered his second loss in a span of three days.

The Blue Jays scored their final three runs off three of the Astros’ top four relievers – Jose Veras in the sixth, Josh Fields in the eighth and Qualls in the ninth. Lefthander Tony Sipp threw two-thirds of a scoreless inning.

“Any transaction that we did we wanted to make sure that we at least held serve at the big leagues and continued to develop with an eye on the future,” Luhnow said. “I think we were able to do that today. The players we gave up are valuable players to the organization.”

Astros rookie righthander Jake Buchanan, who didn’t learn he would start until 3 p.m., gave up five hits and three runs with three strikeouts over five innings in the spot start on three days of rest. He threw 64 pitches, 43 of them strikes.

Buchanan was in line for the victory until the Blue Jays scored a run off Veras in the sixth. He settled for a no-decision.

Jose Bautista gave the Blue Jays a 1-0 lead with a home run to left in the first inning. Toronto added another run in the second after Danny Valencia hit a one-out double to left and scored on Ryan Goins’ single to left.

Jon Singleton cut the deficit to 2-1 with a home run to right in the bottom of the second.

“It’s definitely difficult,” Singleton said after hitting his third home run of the homestand and ninth of the season. “I played with Cosart for pretty much my whole professional career. Me and Kike have become pretty good friends. It’s difficult, but life goes on.”

The Astros mounted a three-run rally in the third inning to take a 4-2 lead. Gregorio Petit led off the third with a single up the middle. One out later, Robbie Grossman tied the score at 2 with an RBI single up the middle. Jason Castro gave the Astros a 3-2 lead with a double off the wall, and Marc Krauss made it 4-2 with an RBI single to right-center.

Reimold led off the fifth with a home run to left to cut the Astros’ lead to 4-3, and Dioner Navarro tied it in the sixth off Veras with a home run to right. Although he missed a suicide squeeze sign, Petit drove in Matt Dominguez from third with a groundout dribbler to third to give the Astros a 5-4 lead in the bottom of the sixth.

The lead didn’t last long, however. Jose Reyes greeted righthander Josh Fields with an infield single to third leading off the eighth inning. Melky Cabrera put runners at the corners with a single to right-center field, and Bautista tied the score with a sacrifice fly to left. Reimold then won it in the ninth.

“It’s tough, but at the same time we knew the shortage of our roster going into the game,” manager Bo Porter said. “It was part of it. Again, we were able to get the ball to the guys we wanted to get the balls to and we just were not able to get it done.”

jesus.ortiz@chron.com

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